"I wish he was my uncle, too," said Dick as they pulled out into the stream. "He isn't a bit stuck up and he knows a lot."
CHAPTER XV.
THE BIG BOOK.
"Please tell us another story from the Big Book," begged Susie as the family were all seated on the piazza one beautiful summer evening.
The great full moon, like a ball of molten iron, was rising in the east. It plowed a silver path across the river. Fireflies glimmered and sparkled in the dusky shadows of the meadow and in and out of the garden shrubs. The merry chirping of the crickets and the low hum of insect voices filled the air. Down by the creek the whip-poor-will told his one story over and over.
"A story from the Big Book!" repeated Uncle Robert. "There are so many and they are all so wonderful. Ever since man was created he has read stories in the earth, water, and sky, and in all living things. Everything he has found in Nature helps him to live and grow wiser and better. We could never understand printed books unless we studied the Big Book. The more we read what God has written the more we shall want to read what other people have found out and put into printed books. The true desire to read these books springs from our love and study of Nature.
"It was written for many years that the sun moved around the earth. But Copernicus studied the sun, earth, and stars anew, and he showed that the printed books were wrong by proving that the earth moved around the sun. Galileo read the same story through the telescope that he made.
"Steam had always been a very common thing. Hot vapor had risen from heated water ever since fire was discovered, but the real story of steam had not been read until Watt sat long hours by a boiling teakettle. Then came the locomotive, the railroad, and mighty engines driving wheels that work for man."
"Wasn't that a good story to read from the Big Book!" said Frank.
"Lightning had flashed and thunder rolled throughout the ages. Men feared, wondered, and worshiped that mighty hidden power. Franklin looked straight at the forked lightning and asked, 'What are you?' The answer came in the telegraph that is fast making the nations of the earth one great family. Bell listened long and carefully to sounds, and now I can talk from New York to my friends in Chicago.